Edgware is a town in Middlesex which has been absorbed into the urban area of London. Sources conflict as to whether it was one of the ancient parishes of Middlesex or not - A Vision of Britain through Time deems it to have been a chapelry of Kingsbury parish, whilst the Victoria County History calls it an ancient parish but makes clear that it was jointly administered with Kingsbury for some time in the medieval period. In 1894 Edgware became part of Hendon Rural District. In 1931 Edgware parish was abolished and absorbed into the parish and Urban District of Hendon, which was incorporated the following year to become a Municipal Borough. Hendon Municipal Borough Council in turn was abolished in 1965, becoming part of the London Borough of Barnet.

Edgware is an area in the northern part of Greater London, in the London Borough of Barnet. It is centred 10 miles (16 km) north-northwest of Charing Cross (a point considered to be the centre of London from which distances are measured) and has its own commerce, many suburban streets, a farm and some elevated woodland on a high ridge marking the Hertfordshire border of gravel and sand.

Brief History of Edgware

Edgware succeeds to the identity of the ancient parish in the county of Middlesex. Edgware is a Saxon name meaning Ecgi's weir. Ecgi was a Saxon and the weir relates to a pond where Ecgi's people caught fish. The Romans made pottery at Brockley Hill, thought by some to be the site of Sulloniacis. Canons Park, to the northwest, was developed as an estate by James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos and was the site of his great palace Cannons.

Demography

Until the 20th century there were no major rises in the population of Edgware. In the manor of Edgware in 1277 there were 8 free tenants (excluding the Grand Priory of Clerkenwell) and 52 customary tenants (assumed to all be men); the survey from which these figures are taken, however, includes lands appurtenant to the manor lying in Kingsbury. In 1425-6 the manor of Edgware had three free and 29 customary tenants in the parish, and in 1525-6 the numbers were two or three free and 26 customary tenants. In 1547 there were 120 (adult or teenage) communicants in the parish. In 1597 there were between 60 and 70 houses in the parish, and 44 more in the village of Edgware but on the west side of Watling Street and therefore in the parish of Little Stanmore. In 1599 there were six free and 25 customary tenants of the manor within Edgware. In 1642 in the Civil War the protestation oath of 1641 was taken by 103 adult males. In 1664 there were 73 houses in the parish, but the [[wikipedia:hearth tax|hearth tax] of 1672 gives only 66. During the 18th century the average numbers both of baptisms and burials declined gently but steadily; in the period 1717-26 the average number of baptisms was between 15 and 16 a year and the average number of burials 20, but by 1801-10 the figures were 11 and 9 respectively. There were said to be 69 houses in the village in 1766 and 76 houses in 1792. At the first census in 1801 the population was 412. Throughout the 19th century numbers rose slowly, except for the years between 1851 and 1871; the censuses of 1861 and 1871 show successive declines of 7 per cent, attributed in 1871 to migration and to the absence of direct trains to London.

Ten years later the losses had been more than made good, and in 1901 the figure of 868 had been reached. By 1921 the population had grown to 1,516, but the great infilling of the southern part of Edgware after 1924 caused the most spectacular increase. In 1931 the population was 5,352; this had increased to 17,513 by 1951 and to 20,127 by 1961. As well as Christian and subsequent settling of other religious groups, Edgware's development coincided with that of its Jewish community, currently forming the largest single religious group. In the 2001 Census, 36% of Edgware residents give their religion as Jewish, 28% Christian, 9% Hindu and 5% Muslim. The Jewish community in Edgware has constructed its own Eruv.

Greater London Research Tips

See wiki.familysearch.org under "London" and also under "Middlesex", "Surrey" and "Kent" for key information about Greater London's jurisdictions and records, plus links to indexes, reference aids and Family History Library holdings.

The London Metropolitan Archives (40 Northampton Road, Clerkenwell, London EC1R 0HB) holds records relating to the whole of Greater London. Ancestry (subscription necessary) has produced transcriptions and provides images of lists of baptisms, marriages, and burials in churches across Greater London. These lists start in 1813 and stretch into the 20th century.

GENUKI has a long list of websites and archive holders in addition to London Metropolitan Archives above. (The list from GENUKI is not maintained so well that there is never a dead link in it. However, it is often worth googling the title given on the page just in case the contributor has reorganized their website.)

GENUKI also has a list of the Archives and Local Studies Libraries for each of the boroughs of Greater London.

London Lives. A very useful free website for anyone researching their London ancestors between the years 1690-1800. This is a fully searchable edition of 240,000 manuscripts from eight archives and fifteen datasets, giving access to 3.35 million names.

London Ancestor, a website belonging to one of the London family history societies, has a list of transcriptions of directories from the 18th century, listing in one case "all the squares, streets, lanes, courts, yards, alleys, &C. in and about Five Miles of the Metropolis..." In other parts of the same website are maps of various parts of 19th century London and Middlesex.

A street-by-street map of London (both sides of the Thames, and stretching from Limehouse and Stepney in the east to Hyde Park and Kensington in the west) drawn by Edward Mogg in 1806. Blows up to a very readable level.

Ordnance Survey map of Middlesex 1900 (provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time) showing Middlesex parishes just after the reorganization of 1899 when much of the former area of Middlesex had been transferred into London.

Ordnance Survey map of Surrey 1900 (provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time) showing Surrey parishes just after the reorganization of 1899 when the most urban part of Surrey had been transferred into London.

Ordnance Survey map of Kent 1900 (provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time) showing Kent parishes just after the reorganization of 1899 when the most urban part of Surrey had been transferred into London.

The proceedings of the Old Bailey, London's central criminal court, 1674-1913. A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court. This website is free to use.

Registration Districts in London, Registration Districts in Middlesex, Registration Districts in Surrey, Registration Districts in Kent, are lists of the registration districts used for civil registration (births, marriages and deaths, as well as the censuses). There are linked supporting lists of the parishes which made up each registration district, the dates of formation and abolition of the districts, the General Register Office numbers, and the local archive-holding place. This work has been carried out by Brett Langston under the agency of GENUKI (Genealogy United Kingdom and Ireland) and UKBMD - Births, Marriages, Deaths & Censuses on the Internet.